Social Media Parenting: Screens, Sleep and Unplugged Time

Is your family "plugged in" all the time? Ours is, and I found out on Sunday that life goes on if I leave my cell phone off for a while - a new Sunday ritual.

According to Soren Gordhamer's article (found on Mashable.com), social media parenting is "no easy endeavor".  Screen time is no longer limited to just TV and video games... smartphones allow us (both parents and tweens) to bring screens wherever we go - school, playgrounds even church.  And parents have just as hard a time unplugging too... but it's going to cost us.

Soren's article gives four lessons for parents on parenting in this plugged-in world, some obvious ("engage and share in social media WITH your child"), but one struck me as a reason WHY you should all unplug and have quality time: quality sleep.  We were lucky to have a great pediatrician who educated us early on about the importance of sleep: its physical and emotional health benefits especially.  According to Soren, "most of us need to be connected for much of the day, but a recent study by the National Sleep Foundation indicates that engaging with technology late at night right before bed is harmful to both adults and children. In fact, 63% of Americans say their sleep needs are not being met during the week."  Now that's powerful stuff.  No sleep = bad grades/work performance, lack of focus, irritability, and difficulty forming quality relationships - for both parents and kids.

Exactly how do screens impact sleep? Soren states, "This is in part due to screens. Dr. Charles Czeisler, a professor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital explains, 'Artificial light exposure between dusk and the time we go to bed at night suppresses release of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin, enhances alertness and shifts circadian rhythms to a later hour — making it more difficult to fall asleep.'” Makes perfect sense to me.  We have banned cellphones from my tween's bedroom - all phones stay downstairs "to charge".

Soren advises us to be a savvy social media parent - share the fun, engage with your child in the technology, but leave the last hour to board games, reading and other activities. I don't know about you, but we like kickin' it old school sometimes with card games, books and just funny stories even as tweens.